


it was a time of rapture

by nintendocialism



Category: Anne of Green Gables (TV 1985) & Related Fandoms, Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: F/M, anne has a big family, anne's parents live! au, avonlea welcoming committee, diana appreciation society, gilbert is her best friend from childhood, matthew and marilla still find their family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-08-14 17:09:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20195758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nintendocialism/pseuds/nintendocialism
Summary: Anne's parents survive scarlet fever. In a world where Anne is cherished and surrounded by family, what changes when they move to Avonlea for her father's job?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> An older and worse version of this exists on FFN - one benefit of leaving this during 6th form is the fresh eye for editing!
> 
> This is one fandom that means immeasurable amounts to me, and I'm working hard to try and do justice to it. This mostly takes after the books in its portrayal of Gilbert's family, but is so far off canon it has little resemblance to any of the various versions of Maud's lovely tale.
> 
> Of course, LMM's version of this story is the best - and most true to character - that it could possibly be, and her portrayal of growing up and letting go is eternally resonant. However - if you wanted Shirbert to have had more time together, this really is the fic for you! 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and on with the show!

Anne cannot remember when her parents fell ill with scarlet fever, yet she knows with perfect certainty that somehow it's a good thing they did. They tell her often that their recovery filled them with such _joie de vivre _and gladness to be alive that they indulged her with renewed vigour - they pored over books with her when she was just three, took her to the sea when she wanted, bought her ice cream, and built the perfect life for all three of them. Now five of them, little four year old Anne thinks, looking at her little brother and sister Alexander and Cordelia (her idea, _mummy, daddy, I can't let you curse another child with such a dull name as Anne_) lying swaddled in their tiny wicker cot on the worn and well loved carpet of their quaint Bolingbroke front room.

The gilded light of a wintry sunset gently stretches its fingers through the lace curtains hanging at the frost-tinted windows that are gloriously warped with age, so Anne turns to Katie Maurice in them and tells her who these slumbering creatures are, hair red and curly as Anne's and Walter's. It's the last time she talks to Katie - she's not starved for company her age anymore. Besides, Mummy and Daddy were the best friends she ever needed anyway, so she bids goodbye to Katie without a care in the world.

Later that day, Walter snatches Anne up from where she stares in raptures at the children - they left her with them for a few minutes so Bertha could rest, and she's just as besotted as they are - he tickles her, carrying her up the stairs, flung over his shoulder 'like a potato sack'. He unceremoniously yet carefully drops her on the bed, both giggling like mad, before leaving to pick up the twins. Anne crawls up to a pale but ecstatic Bertha and places her head in the crook of her mother's neck, content to hear her heart beat. Both grin.

'I love you, my darling. I love you like mad. I wanted you to know that you'll never be repla-'

Anne shuts her off with a mature look and a finger to her mother's lips, a surprisingly mature smile playing at her own. 'I know. I'm so happy too, mummy. I love everyone in this house so much!'

She's suddenly shouting exuberantly, flinging her arms about as her father comes in the door, cradling the rest of their little family.

* * *

Before Anne starts school, Walter and Bertha make the decision to move somewhere a little more picturesque for their romantic minded child and for their twins to grow up. They're around 4 months old now; Anne will be starting school in 5 months, September time. She's 5 now, looking desperately forward to other children, rather than just her caterwauling siblings (though she loves them). They go out a lot to teach her about the world - but this has the side effect of her having no real attachments to the children near her. It's about this time when Walter gets a job offer from a little town called Avonlea on PEI, a friend from Redmond having moved back home to work on the Carmody Board of Education. 'My friend,' he says in his latest letter, 'I think I have just the post you are looking for.'

Walter and Bertha Shirley, self-renowned explorers of this life given miraculously back to them, grab this opportunity with both hands. Little Anne is ecstatic. 'Think, mummy, of all the trees growing out of that red, red soil and sprouting their silver branches over the mayflowers in the hollows!' Walter and Bertha have encouraged this imagination and precociousness, and share her joy deeply. Two weeks later, they say farewell to their little house o'dreams, and board the ferry to Prince Edward Island.

* * *

The island shimmers like a beacon, rising up from the spangled horizon, beckoning. The sea is blue below the ship, the pathway cutting through the ebb and flow of the waves. As they dock and hurriedly board the train to Bright River, they barely have time to feel the warm red earth beneath their toes, and little Anne's frustration is palpable as they steam along the fields and canopies of trees. Walter knows his girl, however, and has read up on PEI so he can answer the burning questions that are inevitably held in her shimmering grey eyes.

'Daddy? Why is the soil red?'

'A higher presence of iron, darling.' He smiles gently at his wife, caught contentedly in the liminal zone between daydreaming and sleeping, a smile curling at her lips, a hand on the baby carriage. She smiles back, face bathed by the sun and dappled by the shade flashing jubilantly by the windows of the train. Anne quietens for a moment, and all three bask in the beauty of their new home, before Anne starts chattering quietly again.

The train draws in at Bright River; their things will arrive tomorrow in a cargo train, but there isn't much. Walter and Bertha aren't particularly materialistic - they have books, a few old heirlooms, but, 'poor as church mice', they sold most of their furniture to pay for the passage over here. They stay the night at the Bright River inn to wait for the crates, telling stories and singing each other to sleep in the breezy dusk of April. When they wake the next day, they find the crates already loaded for them by a kind old man who they had spoken to the night before; he says their love and their children were so beautiful he wanted to do something nice-he saw how tired they were. Anne says, 'am I beautiful even with my red hair?' and the man replies, 'I never saw such intelligence shining from such fine eyes.' Walter and Bertha smile; being clever is better than being pretty, after all, but one comment from a particularly mean boy and Anne has never liked her hair. She doesn't seem to know, as her parents do, that he says her cleverness is imbuing her face with a glow that is rarely found in children.

The cart they have rented and the old man has loaded has a map placed inside a small box in the footwell; Bertha and Walter follow it quite well before Bertha becomes too effusive about the orchard she espies over a low, loose brick wall, where they stop off for lunch. The twins were still asleep, the rocking of the carriage lulling them into slumber, so Bertha lovingly wakes and feeds them as scatterbrained Walter teaches Anne more about the island, stumbling into rabbit warrens as he leaps about. Back on the road, there are very few scrapes as Anne has promised to be on her best behaviour, but the whoops of delight at seeing a gull or a chicken cause a few thrills of fear through her parents as she teeters on the edge of the cart. But that is just Anne - and she never makes the same mistake twice.

It is dusk when they arrive in Avonlea, what with their many stops and inquisitive detours, but when they arrive they find, in the square, a small welcome party for them, commandeered by a Mrs Rachel Lynde, who is generous to a fault but very prying, which the Shirleys write off as amusing. They came here to live, not to censure. Mrs Lynde guides them to the teacher's house, off from the main town by a little road, very near the woods. When they arrive, an austere, sharp, grey woman is waiting for them by the gate, with a little parcel clutched in her hands. 'That there is Miss Marilla Cuthbert. She lives with her brother Matthew at Green Gables, thataway.' Marilla turns to greet them with a smile. They notice that it is rarely used-but it transforms her face into something beautiful. A kindred spirit indeed, they think, as she thrusts her preserves and a small cake at them.

'I apologise for not being at the party. I...don't always like to participate in town events like these. I would prefer to get to know you more personally... if that is agreeable to you, of course...'

Walter and Bertha enthusiastically nod, catch a brief hint of a grin as she clears her throat, looks away.

'Right. Well. Best be off then...'

And with that they turn, cradling their children, and step over the threshold into their new home.


	2. Chapter 2

A few days after they settle in, they begin to receive calls from the neighbours, and start to sketch a picture of their new society. There are the Pyes, who want everyone to think they are their social superiors, and that they could move away at any time - but who are truly too scared to do such a thing for fear of being at the bottom of the ladder. There are the sanctimonious Sloanes. There are the pious, sensible Andrews. There are the generous, jovial Gillises, aware of their reputation and yet not caring a whit. There are the Lyndes, quiet, gentle Thomas and brash, nosy, excellent Mrs Rachel. There are the Fletchers and the Boulters, thick as thieves and poorer. They are generous with what they have, gifting the Shirleys some 'hard-wearing baby gowns; these'll see 'em through a good few winter ramblings.' There are the Barrys, who already care for Anne without having met her as they wish for their bookish daughter to meet her equal. And then, of course, are the reticent Cuthberts. The most sensible of the lot - but not in a cruel way - they are no-nonsense in terms of household management in a way that truly helps the Shirleys, with an appreciation for the imagination _at the right time_, as Marilla tells them after a flight of fancy that nearly involves Walter and Bertha both accidentally painting Anne's room the colour of Alexander and Cordelia's, a yellow rose - whereas Anne has set her heart at a blush colour that she 'can never wear, so I must be happy with it all around me as I sleep.'

Sweet Matthew, her brother, is shy as anything. He is initially petrified of Anne and Bertha, but when Bertha, Anne and Walter are napping after a day of hard work around the house (although Anne's excited contribution could not strictly be termed 'helping', as she called it) when Cordelia begins to cry. A good man, he doesn't want to wake them up, so he awkwardly holds her, softening up gradually, and Marilla comes in to coddle Alexander, who has been set off by his sister's wailing. Anne wakes up before her parents and comes down the stairs to see the two older people uncomfortably yet lovingly holding her brother and sister on the couch. She plumps herself in between them and smiles.

'Thank you. We are all very grateful to you indeed,' she says through a gap-toothed grin. The Cuthberts' hearts melt, surrounded by the children they never had, and feeling renewed inside somehow. The change in their lives, heralded by the arrival of the young couple, has been agreed by both to perhaps be the antidote to a life of regret. The siblings love each other very much, and the inclusion in this new family is exactly what both knows the other needs.

Lord knows they can both be rather awkward about it all, though.

* * *

As the Shirleys are getting used to two babies (_two babies?_ says Bertha one day._ Goodness me, Walter, wasn't one hard enough?_ she chuckles, caressing his cheek with its red 5 o'clock shadow), the Cuthberts, rapidly becoming attached to their kind neighbours, often take Anne. Matthew teaches her about the farm.

'These are chickens, Anne,' he says to the redhead clutching his calloused hand. 'You see these? They're eggs,' he breathes, holding the perfect shell between two fingers and placing it reverently into the basket.

'Like the omelette?' Anne pipes up.

'Yes. Like the omelette.' They spend much of the day in companiable silence (punctuated, of course, by Anne's chatter). As they crouch by the chicken coop, enraptured by the perfect feathers of the rooster, Anne asks him if it is the eggs that are the biggest thrill in life.

'Well now,' mutters Matthew, he of little words. Instead, he walks her round to the cabbage patch and shows her by rooting out a grub. 'How satisfying,' he smiles, waving it near her face as she giggles delightedly, before dropping it in a bucket. For lunch he'll take her back to Marilla.

'Sit still, child,' Marilla says frustratedly, as Anne wiggles her legs and rapturously describes the grub. (_It was so pale, Marilla, with a squirmy little head!_) Marilla gives up trying to place Anne's napkin on her lap and gives her some jam and bread, smirking indulgently at the little thing before her, with a shock of bright red hair and soulful grey-green eyes. She attempts to teach her sewing and embroidery, to no avail, until she realises that if she just teaches her the names of the flowers she weaves through her hair Anne will try her damnedest to sew some semblance of it. So Marilla dusts off her father's old encyclopaedia - and even, one day, goes flower picking in the woods. And if she tucks a daisy behind her ear, well, nobody needs to know...


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and... enter Gilbert!

The Shirleys and the Cuthberts soon become inseparable; all four adults have lost their parents and family. They just dealt with it differently - the Cuthberts retreated out of society almost completely, and the Shirleys uprooted themselves in pursuit of something more. The Cuthberts are as good as grandparents to Anne and the twins, who can't remember a time without them.

* * *

When they have been there a few weeks, Anne and Diana meet. Diana's father owns Barry's pond, on whose banks they now live, between the pond and the forest. When Anne is playing down by the fence (which she must not cross, lest she fall in, _and so say all the parents in her life_), Diana is rowed up to the edge by her father, a good-humoured man whom Anne has met a few times when he has called.

'Good morning Anne,' he heartily intones, 'I have brought my Diana with me today - she has expressed quite a bit of interest in meeting you...'

The two girls are already staring at each other, smiling, a meeting of kindred spirits. Diana clambers out of the dory as elegantly as any five year old can, and Anne scales the fence to lean over it and greet her.

'Hello Anne.'

'Hello Diana. What a _perfectly_ beautiful name you have!'

'Thank you! What are you playing?'

And with that, a friendship is born.

* * *

Anne and Diana play together the whole summer, roaming each other's gardens, making flower wreaths, and learning the first reader in the woods - so that they can be ahead together in class. When school finally rolls around, in an Indian summer so warm and hazy it doesn't seem real, they traipse into school together clutching one of Walter's hands each. He sits them together in their new classroom, and directs a loving and understanding glance at Anne before passing through the door to the adjoining classroom for older students.

_'Darling,'_

_'Yes, daddy?'_

_'You know I think you're special. I adore you. But you must understand that tomorrow, you must not be the only one special to me. I have to support all these children, every single one, equally. Not all have been as lucky as you, with your mummy and I being teachers. That's why I do my job, sweet, so that they know they are supported in their dreams. In there, you are still clever. But, for a few short hours a day, you are not only my daughter. You are my pupil. Do you understand, love?'_

_'I suppose so, daddy.'_

_'I love you, Anne.'_

Later that day, Walter visits from his older charges in order to check how the younger students are doing under the capable care of a no-nonsense recent Queens graduate.

Behind Anne sits Gilbert Blythe, nearly seven and already a confirmed flirt. He hasn't been in Avonlea this summer, visiting family out in the wilds of Alberta. The girls there never said no to his apples and candy. But when Anne Shirley, new girl, has the audacity even notice him, he begins to suspect that something is amiss.

'Hey Carrots... hey! Hey, Carrots!'

She turns, angrily, grabbing her slate. 'You mean, hateful boy! You have no right to speak to any girl like that!' Catching her father's eye in the doorway as she swings round in righteous anger, she lowers her voice halfway through, and stops the motion of her hands before she does something drastic. Ruby Gillis, Gil's biggest victim, nods approvingly; Diana's eyes widen with surprise and pride, and Josie Pye looks smug as anything, ready to spread the story. Jane Andrews has a smirk playing across her lips in the next row over, and this display of support from her friends - minus Josie - makes Anne feel as though she has done the right thing, and her father's wink buoys her spirits. He strolls over, a good-natured look of mischief in his eye.

'And what, Mr Blythe, is wrong with red hair?' he inquires, tugging a lock of his own flame-red over his forehead with a grin. Gilbert has been staring at the back of Anne's head with a look of awe - _no girl ever stands up to my teasing... how interesting _\- but pulls his gaze away to look at his faux-stern principal.

'N-nothing, Sir... I just wanted to meet her so bad.'

And little Anne, who has no reason for 'the iron to enter her soul' in a world where she is so loved, turns around and says with a grin:

'A simple hello would have done.'


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello lovely people of the internet!
> 
> apologies for the wait; this last week has been emotional as in the uk it was a level results day on thursday! i didn't have the energy to do much else than binge jane the virgin with a facemask on with my mum. anyway, that's done, so on with the story! here comes a very convenient and unrealistic plot device <3

A fierce yet friendly rivalry grows up between Anne and Gilbert, and he becomes a fast chum to her, what with Bertha often inviting the children round to play with little Anne. She too recognises the bright spark present that is present in Anne and Diana in Gilbert as well. John Blythe is particularly happy with this arrangement, what with his mischievous son being in the presence of both the girl who knocked some sense into him and the most enthusiastic and inclusive teacher Avonlea has ever seen. Eleanor Blythe is less happy about her son being in the presence of the woman who inevitably comes as a parcel with the Shirleys - Marilla Cuthbert. But there is little she can do, as Gilbert becomes more and more set on seeing Anne every day. She is a good woman who loves her son, and thoroughly approves of sweet, flighty Anne, and thus it comes to pass that Anne Shirley, Diana Barry, Gilbert Blythe, Ruby Gillis and Jane Andrews are often seen running through the Blythe Orchard or the Shirley Wood or the Barry fields...

* * *

A few years pass; the twins are three, Anne is 7, Gilbert is nearly 9. John Blythe falls ill and his wife, deeply in love with him still, plans to uproot the whole family to Alberta for his health. Yet one look at Gilbert's quivering lips and she is nearly undone; the final nail in the coffin is John begging her 'please, love, let the boy stay. He has a good brain in him and that teacher knows just how to help him.' And so she asks the Shirleys to let Gilbert stay with them, thinking that they will be the best parents for a clever boy like her own.

'It should only be for a few months, Mrs Shirley dear. I'm being cautious about my John but I feel he'll be better very soon - he just needs the Alberta air.'

'Eleanor, darling. You know I would love to take him. I think he's a dear sweet boy, and I'm sure with Marilla and Matthew's help we can manage. I'll need to give one of the twins the spare room in two or three years, but he can stay with us until then, if John needs longer to convalesce.'

'Bertha, you're a darling!'

'I'll need to talk to Walter, but you know how he adores Gil too...'

Thus it is settled: Gilbert John Blythe is moving in with the Shirleys.

* * *

The first few days are quite difficult for Walter and Bertha; four children is a handful, despite Gilbert's best attempts to behave. He misses his parents dreadfully, having never been apart from them for longer than a few days, and the Shirleys try to support him through both his worry for his father and his yearning for his mother's embrace. Anne and the twins are palmed off on Marilla and Matthew, only too glad to take them on rambles through the fields and to teach them how to 'cook' - and then clean up the flour-dusted surfaces and jam encrusted spoons. Yet for all Anne adores the brook by Green Gables and the grub farm Matthew makes for her from a large glass jar, she finds herself missing Gilbert, holed up in the room next to her own back at her house, and Diana, who is visiting her Aunt Josephine in Charlottetown.

'Mummy, why won't Gilbert play anymore?' she asks in a melancholy tone one day after she returns from Green Gables to try and coax Gilbert to come to Lovers' Lane. He wouldn't go with her, and Walter had got rather angry at Anne's demanding tone.

Bertha curls up into bed beside her, remembering her own fiery self, who sometimes forgot what others felt. 'My love, Gilbert is going through some difficulties. He doesn't see his parents anymore, little one. Imagine if you had lost us - what would you do?'

Anne remembers a fantasy from earlier that day. 'I would climb up into the cherry tree in the clearing and make a nest for myself, and Gilbert and I would build tiny nests for the twins too!'

'Be serious, darling,' Bertha tries to control her mirth. 'How would you feel?'

'I would miss you very much, mummy. I suppose I would be very sad, as if I had been locked a tall, high tower, with only my grief for company, and nobody understood me anymore and nobody was there. Maybe Gilbert would rescue me, after a while. I would rescue him. I've been trying to - but he just doesn't want me to!'

'Oh love,' sighs Bertha, 'people are different. Gilbert doesn't want you to see him like this. He thinks it would upset you.'

'Well then,' says brusque little Anne in a tone most certainly learnt from Marilla, and hops off the bed.

She charges into Gilbert's room and flops down on the bed beside him, wrapping her arms around his curled frame in a bear hug as Walter and Bertha look in on their daughter and her friend.

'I'm always here Gil. Would you like to go for a walk?'

He gives a wan but truly happy grin, and goes downstairs to pulls on his shoes as they walk off together.

* * *

'Say, Anne,' whispers Gilbert later that summer. It is early September; tomorrow they and Walter return to school.

'Yes, Gil?' she turns and looks at him. They are lying on a grassy slope in the late evening, swallowed by the tough strands of ancient grass and the hardy wildflowers, every conceivable colour yet starting to fade with the delicious weariness of autumn. They are only young, but full of big dreams and big words and the heady scent of the flowers around their heads. 'What is it?'

'What would you like to be when you grow up?'

Anne is silent for a moment, looking at the orange wisps of cotton cloud in the sky as a glorious September sunset begins to stretch across the uninterrupted heavens. All these words echo in her head; if she doesn't know what they mean, she _feels_ their beauty, making them mean what she wants them to.

'I would like to be a writer, or a teacher like mummy and daddy. Imagine all the scope for the imagination, living at the beach and letting the waves breathe their salty breaths upon you, carrying all the hopes and dreams of wayfarers from the olden days... Or the way my parents say they 'sculpt childrens' minds, giving them all the tools they need to go on and accomplish their dreams...'' She trails off, and then remembers herself. 'And you, Gilbert?'

'I believe...perhaps I would enjoy being a teacher, for a while. Your father is very inspiring. But I think that in the end I want to be a doctor.'

Her eyes light up as she sits up and looks at him. 'Oh _Gilbert_, what a wonderful idea! I can see you doing that very well.' She giggles, imitating a 25 year old Gilbert. 'Sir,' she holds up an imaginary notepad, 'I am pleased to tell you that the surgery has gone very well. How could it not, when performed by yours truly?' She dissolves into giggles, collapsing onto her front, looking up at him on the slope. 'What made you think of that?'

'Well, you know we visited my cousins last summer. On the way back, we went to Uncle Dave's at the Glen for a few days. He told me he saved someone's life, and he told me all about Germ Theory and common types of diseases...Oh Anne, don't look so disgusted! I find it so interesting! And seeing my father the way he is...'

Anne scrambles up to him and leans into his side, before he stands, gives her a gallant hand up with a smile, and they make their way back to the Shirley house.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE GOT THE TRAILER I'M CRYING jsakajajaksks
> 
> (p.s. i gave anne a middle name because i feel like she'd know it if walter and bertha were around, and i wanted it to be a pretty one!)

As time goes by, Gilbert and Anne grow up. They both grow together and apart. The gender difference is more pronounced as they grow older, which is not how it should be, but it is how society expects it to be, so Anne moves away from long johns and smocks towards longer dresses; she wears her hair tied away from her face and out of braids, and she spends a lot of time dreaming with Diana, her bosom friend. Yet they grow together in other ways; their intellect matches the other's, they spend time on long rambles, and they still have physical contact, which seems so natural to them, as close as they are. Gilbert is still welcome round the Shirley house even after he leaves - and it's a good thing he leaves too, because soon after he leaves Bertha is pregnant again, a little boy born when Anne has just turned 9. His name is Pierre Matthew, for Bertha's maternal grandfather and for the baby's own grandfather, as they have come to think of the Cuthberts. The twins are 5, and sweet and mischievious like their parents.

Cordelia hides her own rascal tendencies behind a face effervescing and fluctuating between innocence and pure delight. She likes to run down along the brook and catch fish; she likes to draw the grassy knolls that run down the slope of the garden to the river and the dragonflies that aimessly hum around. She loses herself in Marilla's encyclopaedia upon her grandmother's knee, learning about every creature and living thing that catches her fancy.

Alexander likes to bury himself in a book, and he takes inspiration from the heroes of the condensed Shakespeare he pores over to trick and disguise himself. He is quiet, and you would not expect it of him, but when he is alone with the Shirleys, the Cuthberts or Gilbert he practically overflows with effusive fantasy and chatter about his favourite stories.

Alexander is already a great studier of humanity; Cordelia devotes herself to the ins and outs of nature.

They start school the September of the year Pierre is born and apply themselves to the arts and the sciences respectively. They can form quite the group with Anne and Gilbert, who can discuss their favourite things with a little one each. With both wanting to be teachers, they find this helps them as they turn 10 and 11 and 12 to explain things to them, and Gilbert likes consolidating his medical knowledge with a rapt audience in Cordelia.

* * *

Anne and Diana find a hut in the woods and call it Idlewild; Diana strings tiny candles between the branches and Anne brings little rugs from the Bolingbroke flea market. They make a hotchpotch crockery set from the chipped teacups they find at the back of the cupboards. They like to make simple soups on the fire and sit writing and reading stories to each other until dusk.

Jane and Ruby often show up. They write tragical stories about death and romance together, and practice nursing each other back to health. Ruby likes to pretend the girls are her suitors and practice refusing proposals most graciously; Anne likes to joke about Ruby never knowing if another proposal is around the corner, and so not having the safety to refuse. Diana writes stories of devotion to Anne and Anne writes them in return. Jane writes concise little character studies of the people in the village, and is embarrassed at how easily she is coaxed into renaming them and writing shocking and fantastical love stories between, say Theodora Dix and Ludovic Speed. When they finally do start courting, after around five years of skirting around the issue, the girls squeal at how they have predicted destiny.

The next most frequent visitor is Gilbert, who one day finds the Story Club manuscripts nestled between two rocks in a small box to keep dry. He has a great laugh at their expense, but inside has a niggling feeling of fear at Anne's idea of love that he tries to explain away. He tells himself he's simply worried about her. He tells her, 'Anne. Be serious. Nobody loves like this, and if you expect they will your heart will be broken.' He, of all people, should have known that this would only spur her on. She betrays how much she cares for his opinion in her next few words, but she turns up her perfect little nose, and despite her insecurity she says 'just you wait, Mr Blythe. I shall have a love story where there _is_ a life threatening illness, _and_ refusals _and _entanglements _and_ the deep pains of unrequited, _romantic_ love-which clearly _you_ know nothing about. And someday it shall be requited, and I shall be reunited with my love with a devotion so strong _I won't care that you said that_. I shall find a love so deep the story of how it came to be shall be passed down for centuries.'

* * *

When Anne is 12 and he is just 14, that is when she starts wearing her long red curls down her back, instead of tucked away in her signature plaits. She hasn't started wearing the longer dresses that make her a woman at this point, or tying it up 'most elegantly, not at all like Alice Bell says she will' (as she tells Gil). But this recognition of her femininity shows Gil that she, like him, is in adolescence, that liminal stage where you are too young for most things but too old for others. He fears they will soon be considered too old to go out alone together anymore. On one of their rambles, Gilbert (who has always felt a fondness for Anne above the other girls that he couldn't _quite _explain) finds himself reaching out to touch a ruddy-gold coil of firey hair. The way it glints in the setting sun, the shade of the trees bringing out the darker tints of auburn underneath the twists of her bright tresses.

'Hey, Carrots,' he breathes when they sit down, twirling a lock of this most entrancing substance round his finger. She glares at him.

'Oh Gil, don't! You know that is the very root of why we argue.' She looks away melodramatically to hide the twinge of hurt she feels when he calls her what she perceives as an insult.

'Anne, I didn't mean anything bad by it.' A suspicious pause from Anne. 'I swear! I think your hair is...' He can't quite find the word.

'Gilbert Blythe! Why must you _torment_ me this way? I knew I shouldn't wear it out of the plaits yet...I knew it would draw attention to my horrid, ugly hair! No one will _ever_ marry me with my Satanic hair! I may never even be a foreign missionary's wife!' She collapses, weeping, murmuring 'Josie Pye...'

Gil clasps his arms about her, chuckling with that practical, caring tone in his laugh. He wipes away her tears. 'What does she say, little Anne?'

'She said... G-God cursed me with my-' here she mimics Josie's smug whine - 'horrifically orange hair... I know it can't be true but it still hurts...'

'Why, Anne,' he smiles, 'we can go talk to Mrs Rachel if you like, as I'm also fairly certain Josie made that piece of 'scripture' up on the spot. I've never heard such tosh. She was jealous of you, I'm sure. She always is - your brains, your rather enchanting hair -' here he sweeps a curl behind her ear. They realise how close they still are. They move apart, not making eye contact. 'We'll show her how little you care when you walk in on Monday with your hair fanning out behind you proudly. Don't let her win, Anne. She's a Pye - and therefore absolutely not worth the effort to talk to unless they're throwing a party...' he trails off, chuckling awkwardly.

She clears her throat. 'I wouldn't mind talking to Mrs Lynde, to be honest. She always tells the truth - and I feel as though the truth may be a balm to my wounded soul. If there truly is no hope for me, I'd much rather get all my crying done today and tomorrow so I don't come to school looking shamefully redfaced on Monday.' They both laugh at her overblown statement, Gil a little harder than necessary in order to hide his realisation. Dear God.

Gilbert John Blythe is in love with Anne Isabella Shirley.


End file.
